(PHOTO: Workers set up camp at Santiago's Rio Mapocho/Mason Bryan, The Santiago Times)Chile nears 1 month without mail service as postal worker protests continue. This week local branches of the 5 unions representing Correos de Chile voted on whether to continue their strike into a 2nd month, rejecting the union's offer. For a week the workers have set up camp on the banks of Santiago's Río Mapocho displaying banners outlining their demands; framing the issue as a division of the rich & the poor. The strike’s main slogan? “Si tocan a uno, nos tocan a todos,” it reads - if it affects 1 of us, it affects all of us. (Read more at The Santiago Times)

WHO convenes emergency talks on MERS virus

(PHOTO: Saudi men walk to the King Fahad hospital in the city of Hofuf, east of the capital Riyadh on June 16, 2013/Fayez Nureldine)The World Health Organization announced Friday it had convened emergency talks on the enigmatic, deadly MERS virus, which is striking hardest in Saudi Arabia. The move comes amid concern about the potential impact of October's Islamic hajj pilgrimage, when millions of people from around the globe will head to & from Saudi Arabia. WHO health security chief Keiji Fukuda said the MERS meeting would take place Tuesday as a telephone conference & he told reporters it was a "proactive move". The meeting could decide whether to label MERS an international health emergency, he added. The first recorded MERS death was in June 2012 in Saudi Arabia & the number of infections has ticked up, with almost 20 per month in April, May & June taking it to 79. (Read more at Xinhua)

LINKS TO OTHER STORIES

Dreams and nightmares - Chinese leaders have come to realize the country should become a great paladin of the free market & democracy & embrace them strongly, just as the West is rejecting them because it's realizing they're backfiring. This is the "Chinese Dream" - working better than the American dream. Or is it just too fanciful? By Francesco Sisci

The South: Busy at the polls - South Korea's parliamentary polls will indicate how potent a national backlash is against President Lee Myung-bak's conservatism, perceived cronyism & pro-conglomerate policies, while offering insight into December's presidential vote. Desire for change in the macho milieu of politics in Seoul can be seen in a proliferation of female candidates. By Aidan Foster-Carter

Pakistan climbs 'wind' league - Pakistan is turning to wind power to help ease its desperate shortage of energy,& the country could soon be among the world's top 20 producers. Workers & farmers, their land taken for the turbine towers, may be the last to benefit. By Zofeen Ebrahim

The video recognizes that in the past Uganda did suffer atrocities as a result of LRA activity. Similar atrocities are very much a reality in neighboring countries tho, says the Prime Minister. Further he goes on, "The government is determined, having suffered the ravages of Kony in Uganda not to let any other country or communities suffer the same”.

The video points out that Uganda is now a "thriving peaceful country" where the Peace, Recovery and Development Programme implemented by the Government has greatly assisted in the last 6 years of lasting peace, rejuvenation and rebirth of the Northern Region of the country where the LRA was most active.

(PHOTO: Prime Minister of Uganda, Amama Mbaba)“My Uganda is a country endowed with great resources and captivating natural beauty,” Mbabasi says. “My Uganda is a country that is poised to take off. We have registered success after success in the last 25 years and we are determined to build on this success to bring about in the next few years a new and prosperous nation.”

He invites people not only in Uganda but across the world to share their Ugandan experiences and he ends by saying, “That is my Uganda. Please tell us about your country”

Over the last several weeks, our organization Invisible Children, has seen what is possible when you have the right idea at the right time…and have spent nine years unwittingly laying a foundation for it.

Our idea was to make Uganda'sJoseph Kony, the notorious head of the Lord's Resistance Army famous - not as a celebrity - but as an international war criminal who has committed mass atrocities with impunity for 26 years.

We made a 29-minute documentary about what he had done and what policy experts and region leaders told us needed to happen if Kony was to be apprehended and his crimes permanently stopped.

(PHOTO: Joseph Kony/NNDB)We set an ambitious goal aiming to get 500,000 people to view the film before the end of 2012. Instead, it vastly exceeded our expectations. The film swept the globe and surged past 100 million views in a matter of days.

But beyond the exposure for Invisible Children, and much more importantly, the global reaction to our film started real conversations about international justice, development work, Joseph

Kony, and whether there was any action—like a tweet—that was too small.

In the weeks since the film’s release we’ve been amazed by the responses from middle schoolers who are bringing up Joseph Kony in their social studies classes and equally amazed that USSenators and Representatives are putting partisan politics aside for the sake of a conflict in one of the remotest parts of Central Africa.

Many have expressed surprise at Invisible Children’s apparent overnight success.

But that is hardly the case. We have actually produced 12 documentaries and met more than three million people face-to-face during our 13 tours around the country where our representatives show our films at high schools and colleges and answer questions about the conflict.

When Invisible Children launches a new campaign, it’s not just the forty people in our San Diego office launching it, it's the millions we have met on the road.

There were many celebrities that shared KONY 2012 in the first hours and days after its release through social networks and other means. We are so grateful that they used their influence to share the story, but I do not believe that those celebrities would have heard about the film if our core supporters hadn’t rallied around the campaign in their own local communities and shared it in such great numbers using their personal networks.

(PHOTO: Joseph Kony, center, in white/Guardian)The original goal of Cover the Night, as introduced in the KONY 2012 film, was to make Joseph Kony famous. That happened in a matter of days thanks to millions of people around the world who shared the KONY 2012 films. The event has expanded into a global day of action that actually started earlier this week with daily “missions” to engage our national and international leaders.

Tonight, Friday, April 20, 2012, we are earning the right to be heard globally by serving locally.

Everyone who wants to participate is encouraged to form a small team with friends, colleagues, or neighbors. Each team should volunteer in their own communities for a few hours (picking up trash, washing cars for free, donating blood, etc.) and then spend the evening promoting justice for Joseph Kony in creative ways (posters in the windows, sidewalk chalk, painting a mural, etc.)

What I’ve learned in the seven years that I’ve worked for Invisible Children is that a personal, human interaction is more valuable than a digital one.

Every time.

Cover the Night in its simplest form is an event that acts out that truth. We’re taking the anonymous conversation about a viral video into the streets where the relationships are formed and the future is forged.

We always tell our supporters, “You are more powerful than you think you are.” When they begin to believe that about themselves, amazing things start to happen. We’ve seen students wake up to their own power and begin organizing school-wide screenings of Invisible Children documentaries or donate $12 each month to our scholarship program. Other students call their senators and lead local lobby meetings.

(PHOTO: Labuje camp, Uganda 2005 where 14,000+IDP's lived due to LRA activity/Wikipedia)There are thousands of these students out there–some of whom have grown up and become teachers or filmmakers in their own rights. They are the ones who will be leading the way tonight. They may be young, but they can earn the right to be heard online and around the globe by acting offline in their own communities.

We know that these stories will be rolling in for weeks and Invisible Children will do its best to share those stories and amplify the life change that will come as a result of trying to promote justice for Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony, a man whom many people had never heard of just six weeks ago.

But rather than wait to hear the reports of life change, we encourage you to go out into your community tonight with your family or friends and experience it for yourself.

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HUMNEWS: CLOSING THE GEOGRAPHIC GAP IN MEDIA. Human Media, 2017.
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